French Satellite Data Raises Hope In Search For Missing Jet

March 23, 2014 1:31 pm

French satellite data raise hopes in search for missing jet

By Jeremy Grant in Kuala Lumpur and Jamie Smyth in Sydney

©AFP

Two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft have joined the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370

French satellite images of debris in the southern Indian Ocean have raised hopes that the search for a missing Malaysia Airlines jet is getting closer to discovering the fate of the flight which disappeared two weeks ago en route to Beijing.

Malaysian authorities said images from a French satellite showed “potential objects” near the search area southwest of Perth, Australia.

MH370 debris map

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They are the third set of satellite images of the area. The largest search for a missing airliner in aviation history shifted from the South China Sea to the southern Indian Ocean last week after Australia said images it had received from a US satellite company were a “credible” lead.

Tony Abbott, the Australian prime minister, said Chinese satellite images released on Saturday had created “increasing hope” that the search for flight MH370 was on a path towards discovering what happened to the aircraft. The Chinese images show a large piece of debris floating in the sea.

The French foreign ministry said France was deploying further satellite surveillance following the spotting of the so-far unidentified debris, which it said was detected by radar echo about 2,300km from Perth.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa), which is co-ordinating the search, said eight aircraft were combing a 59,000 square kilometre (22,800 square miles) area about 2,500km southwest of Perth.

Searchers spotted a wooden cargo pallet, along with belts or straps, on Saturday.

Mike Barton, operations co-ordinator at Amsa, said: “Part of the description was a wooden pallet and a number of other items which were nondescript around it, and some belts of some different colours around it as well, strapping belts of different lengths.” But a New Zealand aircraft failed to find the pallet again on Sunday.

China’s role in the search is set to widen after the arrival in Perth on Sunday of two Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 aircraft. Beijing is sending two more ships to join five of its vessels already searching for the missing airliner, which was carrying 153 Chinese nationals. Two Japanese P3 Orions left Malaysia for Perth to join the search, Amsa said.

“This is a challenging search operation and [Amsa] continues to hold grave fears for the passengers and crew on board the missing flight,” the Australian authority said.

An approaching cyclone could complicate the effort to locate the objects in what are some of the world’s most treacherous water. A cyclone warning had been declared for tropical cyclone Gillian, which is located in the southern corridor.

A British navy ship equipped with advanced underwater search sensors is on its way to the search area from the Gulf.

Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing in the early hours of March 8 and disappeared from radar within an hour. Satellite data indicated that it had flown along one of two arcs – a northern corridor that stretches to Kazakhstan and a southern corridor that runs into the Indian Ocean.

The search teams face several challenges in locating the objects detected from the satellite data. Not only are the waters some of the roughest in the world, but days have passed since the first satellite images were taken, which means the debris could have drifted, or sunk.

That part of the ocean varies between 1,150 metres and 7,000 metres in depth, which is deeper than the sea into which Air France Flight 447 plunged in 2009.

Ron Bishop, a former US air force flight engineer who has taken part in dozens of search operations, said it was important to locate the debris within the next 17 to 18 days while the flight recorder was likely to be emitting a signal.

“The flight recorder probably only has 17-18 days left of power when it will still be emitting an emergency signal that would really help the search operation to locate it under the water,” said Mr Bishop, who is head of aviation at Central Queensland University.

Additional reporting by Hugh Carnegy in Paris